74 ALASKA INDUSTRIES. 



Weight of female seals.— Tlio adult females will correspond 

 with the three-year-old males in the above table, the younger cows 

 weighing frequently onlj^ 75 pounds, and many of the older ones going 

 as high as 120, but an average of 80 to 85 pounds is the rule. Those 

 specimens of the females which I weighed were examples taken by 

 me for transmission to the Smithsonian Institution ; otherwise I should 

 not have l)een permitted to make this record of their weight, inas- 

 much as weighing them means to kill them, and the law and the habit, 

 or rather the prejudice of the entire community up there, is unani- 

 mously in opposition to any such proceeding, for they never touch 

 females here, and never set their foot on or near the breeding grounds 

 on such an errand. It will be noticed, also, that I have no statement 

 of the weights of these exceedingly fat and heavy males which first 

 appear on the breeding grounds in the spring. Those which I have 

 referred to in the table above given were very much heavier at the 

 time of their first ai)pearance in May and Jnne than at the moment 

 when they were in my hands in July; but the cows and the other 

 classes do not sustain protracted fasting, and therefore their weights 

 may be considered substantially the same throughout the year. 



Change in weight. — Thus, from the fact that all the young seals 

 and females do not change much in weight from the time of tbeir first 

 coming out in the spring till that of their leaving in the fall and early 

 winter, I feel safe in saying that thej^ feed at irregular but not long 

 intervals during the time that they are here under our observation, 

 since they are constantly changing from land to water and from water 

 to land day in and day out. I do not think that the young males fast 

 longer than a week or ten days at a time, as a rule. 



Dispersal of the " holluschickie." — By the end of October and 

 the 10th of November the great mass of the "holluschickie," the 

 trooping mja-iads of English Bay, Southwest Point, Reef Parade, 

 Lukannon Sands, the table-lands of Polavina, and the mighty hosts 

 of Novastoshnah, at St. Paul, together with the quota of St. George, 

 had taken their departure from its shores and had gone out to sea, 

 spreading with the receding schools of fish that were now returning 

 to the deep waters of the North Pacific, where, in that vast expanse, 

 over which rolls an unbroken billow 5,000 miles from Japan to 

 Oregon, they spend the winter and the early sj^ring, until thej^ reap- 

 pear and break uj), with their exuberant life, the dreary winter isola- 

 tion of the land which gave them birth. 



Taste of the seals in the matter of weather. — A few strag- 

 glers remain, however, as late as the snow and ice will permit them 

 to in and after December. They are all down by the water's edge 

 then, and haul up entirely on the rocky beaches, deserting the sand 

 altogeth-er; but the first snow that falls makes them very uneasy, and 

 I have seen a large hauling ground so disturbed by a rainy day and 

 night that its hundreds of thousands of occupants fairly deserted it. 

 The fur seal can not bear and will not endure the spattering of sand 

 into its eyes, which always accompanies the driving of a rainstorm. 

 They take to the \tater, to reappear when the nuisance shall be abated. 



The weather in which the fur seal delights is cool, moist, foggy, and 

 thick enough to keep the sun always obscured, so as to cast no shadows. 

 Such weather, which is the normal weather of St. Paul and St. George, 

 continued for a few weeks in June and Julj^ brings up from the sea 

 millions of fur seals. But, as I have before said, a little sunshine, 

 which raises the temperature as high as 50° to 55° F., will send them 

 back from the hauling grounds almost as quickly as they came. P^or- 



